Upstate NY’s ‘Video Game Hall of Fame’ Class of ’24 Includes These Five Classics

The metaphorical white smoke has emerged from The World Video Game Hall of Fame in Rochester, and five classic video games have been named to their Class of 2024.

The Video Game Hall of Fame exists within The Strong National Museum of Play, and while the video game museum opened up in 2009, the Hall of Fame was not introduced until 2015.

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Each year since then, between four-and-six classic video games have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. The eras in which these video games were released vary tremendously; the oldest inductee was 1962's Spacewar!, while the newest inductee was 2013's The Last of Us.

As documented by New York Upstate, the Class of 2024 was introduced by the Hall last week. Scroll below to learn more about the five inductees.

Game #1: Asteroids

Asteroids was released in 1979 by Atari, and requires players to control a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is, at times, invaded by flying saucers.

The game became extremely popular in video game arcades, and an at-home version of the game was later released.

Game #2: Myst

Myst was first released in 1993 by video game company Cyan for Macintosh (Mac) computer users. The game asks users to solve puzzles in order to travel between different worlds, or ages, and each "age" brings about unique challenges for the player.

The Myst franchise has spawned five different games, released from 1993 through 2005.

Game #3: Resident Evil

The first game in the Resident Evil series was created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara, and was released for the PlayStation in 1996. A pillar of the horror video game genre, players have to navigate worlds infested by zombies or other horrific creatures.

The Resident Evil franchise is one of the largest in video game history, with seven "official" iterations of the game having been released. There have also been online games, smaller sub-games, a series of movies, a television series and much, much more.

Game #4: SimCity

The first SimCity game was released between 1989 and 1991 across multiple consoles, including PC. It is an open-ended, city-building game that allows players to act as the "mayor" of their own city, controlling construction projects and the overall development of their city.

There were fifteen total entries in the SimCity franchise between 1989 and 2014. Unfortunately, the series is likely finished, as the game's developer, Maxis Emeryville, shut down in 2015

The shutdown is connected by many to the negative reviews of their 2013 re-launch of SimCity.

Game #5: Ultima

The first version of Ultima was released in 1981 by Origin Systems. There was also a game that was released by the same designer in 1979, Akalabeth: World of Doom, that many believe is a prequel to the Ultima franchise.

That all said, Ultima is the name that people remember most, and it is a titan of the open-world fantasy genre. The franchise released nine games, split into trilogies, from 1981 through 1999.